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Any memories of introducing any particular bands?
"One of my saddest TOTP was a video that was meant for TOTP and was never ever shown because of a technicians’ strike. When had "Hersham Boys" out, I’d played the fiddle in the video. It was great, and it was going to be on the week that I was presenting. So I’m presenting it and I’m in a hit video as well! That week there was a strike so the video was never ever shown. I watched it recently."
Have you any memories of that era?
", , , , all that was great, it was a great period for music, very good. When we did our last Pop Quiz, it was Spandau Ballet versus Duran Duran which in the 60’s would have been the versus the really. And that was great fun. I remember so often coming out of Television Centre with the band on a Saturday morning or TOTP and suddenly there were thousands of kids outside the gate and it was like Beatlemania. It was wonderful, it was great fun to be part of and I suspect for the group quite euphoric, it probably was for me in a way as well, I thought "Wow this is great" especially when the fans treated you in much the same way and you thought 'Oh I like this, this is not bad' . But there was some great music, some very good bands in the 80’s and some great singles."
What about Duran Duran then?
"I remember going to a pub in Weybridge one night and several people came up and said 'Oh Mike can you play a record for me tomorrow?', I stuck the request in my pocket. I had about 20 pieces of paper and when I got home they were all for 'Planet Earth' by Duran Duran. Immediately I thought this is going to be massive and the following week they were on TOTP and I remember going up to Simon Le Bon, and I said 'You really look like a young ' and his face was a complete blank. I don’t think he wanted to look like a young Elvis Presley because at the time it wouldn’t have been remotely cool for a new romantic to look like an old romantic."
Frankie Goes To Hollywood had this extraordinary situation of being shown on TOTP and then not being shown. What was your part in all that?
" had already done TOTP with 'Relax' and we’d already played them on Radio 1. When people ask me about Frankie I say 'well do you want the truth or do you want the myth?' The myth is of course that I banned it, the truth is of course that I wasn’t in a position to ban it, the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ were. I was only an individual and my producer Paul Williams had gone home and found his 2 young girls rewinding all the naughty bits of the video. Children’s TV said to me 'stay away from this one'. Really it was about Paul Morley, [Frankie's] manager, who quite rightly seized the chance and said 'Mike Read bans it!' because I was very high profile at the time, because it’s all part of rock 'n roll history. I had no problem with the record or the guys really. I always got on very well with Holly, but it was a myth and who’s to stand in the way of a myth?"
Do you think it should have been banned from TOTP?
"I’m not sure whether anything should be banned. You can say maybe one shouldn’t play a particular song at a particular time and maybe it’s more suitable at other times, but of course it’s difficult to judge it in retrospect, because things seem tame 15 years later. People said 'jazz music waaah the Devil’s music, music’s dead, there is no more music, here’s jazz'. When Rock n Roll came in, 'it’s the Devil’s music, let’s smash it, what happened to good old jazz?' Then when punk came in, 'whoa, real music’s dead, this is punk'. It happens all the time so I don’t think there’s any problem with that, it’s just difficult to judge years later because it seems tame."
You were a regular presenter throughout the 80’s, but occasionally you were joined by John Peel. What kind of impact did he have on the show?
"John was always very different, he always did it, but claimed he didn’t want to do it. 'Oh you don’t want me on TOTP, I’m just bald old John, you want young blokes on there not me, but yes I will do it, I will do it'. I distinctly remember John going on there and getting away with it when he was introducing and saying 'this is a group that put the tree in Big Country' and it just sort of went through and went out."
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